Raining Through the Sunshine
by PhoenixFire Lia
Summary: Angst, little language, thematic elements, and yaoi. Specificially Taito. Yes, Lia wrote a pure Taito. The prequel to "Nothing in my World Goes Right."


Raining Through the Sunshine

Nicki threatened to do terrible, terrible things to me if I didn't write this. So I, Kawaii Li'l Lia, have sucked it up and written a Taito. This is the prequel to "Nothing in my World Goes Right," telling a sordid tale of forbidden love, a family's homophobia, and two boys who're willing to defy them. Now put the jingly shoes away, Nicki! 

            It was one of those sticky-hot summers, where the sidewalk practically boils, and all anyone wants to do is to crash in front of the air conditioning. It was also one of the most peaceful summers in the history of Odaiba. There were no so-called terrorist attacks (evil digimon) or mysterious weather (more evil digimon) or megalomaniacs trying to destroy everything (still more evil digimon). There wasn't a Digimon Emperor yet, nobody really cared what Oikawa Yukio thought, and the Internet had been attacked only once so far. It was a transition between youth and adolescence for the eight original Digidestined, T.K. still lived across the harbor, Mimi had yet to move to America, and soccer was still the sport of choice for Sora. However, there are some things that even time and newfound maturity cannot change…

            "_TAICHI KAMIYA, I'M GOING TO KILL YOU!"_

Matt had been asleep, reclined in the shade…that is, until he woke to find himself in a puddle. The remnants of fragmented water balloons lay scattered about him, and the blonde was thoroughly soaked to the skin, thanks to the industrial-sized globes of rubber that were launched with the utmost precision by one goggle-headed leader. 

"Oh, you're not _that _mad at me, are you, Matt?" 

He glared at Tai through his dripping hair, blue eyes narrowed. "What do you think?"

"I think you're going to forget all about it in two minutes," Tai responded, a mischievous spark in his coffee-colored eyes. 

"And why is…"

Tai leaned down and kissed him, hand cradling his jaw. Their mouths meshed, working gently against one another. The younger boy helped his boyfriend to a more upright position, wiping a droplet of water from his cheek. 

            "Oh. Forget I ever said anything," Matt whispered, smiling coyly. And then he clapped Tai on the back with a water balloon of his own, saturating the brunette as well. 

"That was a cheap shot!" Tai gasped, feeling the cold water trickle down his back. 

"Well, it was my revenge for you getting me while I was asleep. _That _was cheap."

Tai let out a long sigh, stretching out beside his boyfriend. "Shame Kari isn't around, we could've ganged up on her and made her pay for the peanut butter in my socks last week."

"That would explain T.K., grape jelly, and my sneakers."

The brunette chuckled. "What're you doing Friday night?"

Matt sighed, pretending to be in deep thought. "Nothing, probably just stay at home and color my hair something interesting. Maybe blue, to match my eyes. Or blue and white, so Gabumon and I can stop clashing so horribly."

Tai grabbed him by the shirt collar and yanked him up. "You do _anything _to your hair and I swear to God I will kill you."

"Okay, okay, I won't. Why, what's going on Friday night?"

"Nothing," Tai said slyly, "unless my boyfriend wants to attend a foreign film festival. Mimi happened to snag a couple of tickets, but she's got a schedule glitch, so she pawned them off on me."

"Foreign film festival?" Matt asked incredulously. "Seriously?"

"Prime seating too."

The blonde grinned childishly. "What time can you pick me up?"

            There were two things in life that Matt could not live without, Tai had learned. One was his music…that being said, it had been his duty as a doting boyfriend to kick in some extra cash in order to pay for a certain cherry red 62 RI jazz bass that had been lusted after for months. The other happened to be foreign films. 

"Mm…six?"

"Sounds perfect. You always come up with fun dates, you know?"

"You didn't think I enjoyed that artsy things you took me to?" Tai asked. 

Matt raised an eyebrow. "Which one?"

"All of them. The showing at the museum, the art thing at that Starbucks, the opera…"

"You liked the opera?" 

"Yeah! That guy with the feathers kicked ass! And when the lady turned out to be the villain after all? Oh man!"

"Well what do you know, Tai Kamiya's got culture after all," Matt stated, chuckling. 

"You…"

_"TAI! TAICHI KAMIYA, COME HOME NOW!"_

            The two young men looked up in shock. 

"Was that your mother?"

"…I guess."

"Don't you live three blocks from here?" 

Tai grimaced, exchanging a hasty and chaste kiss with his boyfriend. "I'll talk to you later."

And with that, he took off in a dead run towards his apartment, muttering curses and oaths regarding his condition once his mother was through with him. Matt sighed and lay back down, not caring if he was still soaked to the skin anymore. 

"I'm gonna marry him someday…if I don't kill him first."

~*~

            Jane Kamiya stood on her front balcony, glaring at her son as he stepped out of the elevator. A wooden spoon was in her right hand. 

"Where have you been?"

"…The park. I told you that before I left."

"You're soaked! What were you doing?" she gasped like only an angry mother can. 

"It was a rogue water balloon."

She rolled her eyes. "I shouldn't even ask anymore. Head inside."

"Why? Are we going out somewhere or something?" Tai asked, removing his shoes. 

"No…I just…it's getting dark, so I want you to come in," his mother replied uneasily. 

Tai checked his watch. "It's two forty-three."

"…Yes, but there was…a National Weather Service warning. Terrible thunderstorms. I didn't want you to get electrocuted. Now get inside."

            Tai merely shook his head, retreating to his bedroom. Something odd was going on with his mother, he could sense it. Usually she'd be begging him to get out of the house and stay out, not railing at him to get in. He certainly didn't buy the thunderstorm story; there wasn't a single cloud in the sky as far as he could see. 

"That's weird," he muttered, seating himself on the lower bunk, his, and flopping down. 

"What?" Kari asked from her bunk, where she was reading some trashy teenage girl magazine…despite the fact that she was merely ten. 

"Mom. It's like three and she wants me in for the night? Says it's going to thunder or something lame like that."

"Huh. Did she find out about the gerbils you let loose on the last day of school?"

"Nope. I was just harassing Matt with a water balloon. Hey wait…" 

            He sat up, peering up into the top bunk where his sister lay. "You didn't tell Mom about Matt and me, did you?"

"I swear I didn't. As much as I like seeing you suffer, telling her you're gay would be inhumane."

"I'm not gay, Kari. Just bi."

"Gay, bi, you're still dating Matt so there's no big difference. Mm, aren't you guys going out on Friday? How're you gonna slide this one past Mom?"

"I'll tell her the truth, that I have a date…" he paused and grinned viciously, "…with Sora."

"Just don't get yourself caught, that's all I'm saying."

            It was a known fact in the Kamiya household that Tai and Kari's parents were strict homophobes. They had brought their children up to believe that homosexuality was wrong, and no good would come from any sort of relationship with the same sex. Of course, it is the duty of the eldest to push boundaries, and Tai was no exception. He never intended to challenge his parents' beliefs, but love works in mysterious ways, and he had found himself falling for his best friend, the stoic blonde who threatened to kill him on several occasions and would rather have a vital organ removed than cry in front of anyone. They had been seeing each other in secret for more than a year now, and it was getting harder with every day to continue keeping the truth from Tai's parents. Tai just kept holding out hope that his parents could change; learn to accept the fact that not every couple in the world was hetero.

~*~

            Matt was hardly listening to his father. Malcolm was going off on him again, another lecture about school. It was one of those spontaneous father lectures that happen out of the blue, and he was raving about college situations, that if his son applied himself more and brought up his math scores by a minimum of a hundred points, he could go to any school he chose. Matt would calmly interject at points to remind his father that he was only in the eighth grade, and that college should not be thought about until at least tenth. Besides, he had made his decision about school long before. He wanted to apply to Julliard more than anything, because it was one of the top-ranking schools for the arts in the entire world. It would mean moving to New York, but for the education, it was worth it. 

"I'm not saying your grades aren't excellent, they really are Matt, but you need to apply yourself more if you want to get into a good school. High school entrance exams at the end of the year, college entrances not long after that. These are the sorts of things you need to be thinking about."

            Matt nodded; disinterested in anything his father was saying but using his meager assemblage of acting skills to pretend as though he was. He wasn't quite sure what he was thinking about, rather than school, but he certainly wasn't on the same train of thoughts as his father. 

"I have a date Friday night, I'll leave your dinner in the microwave," he said quietly, picking up his glass and running a finger around the rim. 

"What's that?" Malcolm Ishida questioned, glancing up from his plate. 

"I'm going out on Friday. Tai's taking me to the film festival," the blonde repeated. 

The brunette man nodded. "His parents still don't know, do they?"

"No. And I'm getting worried, Dad. They're going to, and when they do they'll hit the roof. I don't want anything bad to happen, but I have this feeling something horrible _will _happen."

"Well have you talked to Tai about it?"

"I wanted to today, but his mother called him home before I got the chance to. We'll probably see each other tomorrow, I'll tell him then."

His father nodded again and excused himself from the table, setting his dishes in the sink with the ever-growing pile of unwashed utensils and crockery. 

"Such a pitiful apartment. Bad enough we have no couch, but no dishwasher? Nobody's heard of a guitarist with dishpan hands," the blonde boy sighed, turning on the taps and reaching for the liquid dish soap. His hair, at that moment in his life, was somewhere between the boyish spikes and the longer, dare I say David Spade-ish, look of his teenage years, so he hadn't yet developed the need for a small pile of black hair elastics to reside in the kitchen. They would come soon enough. 

 Matt was mildly surprised to get so much fatherly advice. Usually he was treated more as cook and housekeeper rather than son. It wasn't that Malcolm Ishida was negligent or abusive; he just wasn't as loving as fathers came, and he really had no skills in the parenting department. But Matt couldn't hold that against him, the man did try. It really didn't matter to him that his father was hardly home, or that when he was home they didn't talk all that much. Malcolm was far more understanding than the average parent. When his son would hurriedly explain that he had to leave in order to save all of mankind, he would shrug it off and casually ask if there were enough frozen dinners to last him until the boy's return. And his father had no qualms about his bisexuality or his relationship with Tai…which would prove to be vital in the days that would come, when he needed a rock to cling to as the tumult swirled around him.

~*~

            The next day dawned just as bright, sunny and sticky as the one before it, a perfect day for an energetic teenager to get outside and run free before he was chained down to work and school and boring things that he had no desire to take part in. 

"Tai, I'm going out today. You have to stay home and watch Kari."

The goggle-boy leaned over the couch at his mother. "Mom, Kari's ten. She can take care of herself."

"She's very sick, Tai. I don't want her going out, and I don't want you going out and leaving her by herself. Understand?"

Tai understood perfectly. He had almost killed his sister once because he took her outside while she was sick. And he still lived with the guilt that he had almost killed his baby sister. 

"I won't go out Mom, I promise!"

"Good, I'll see you later." And Jane Kamiya left the apartment, door clicking shut.

At that moment Kari came out of their bedroom and began rummaging around in the refrigerator. She settled on a cup of strawberry yogurt and started hunting for a spoon. 

"Kari! What are you doing out of bed? And eating yogurt! It'll only make you worse!"

She stared at her brother. "Tai, what are you talking about?"

"You're delirious! It's worse than I thought! Go lie down, right now, young lady!"

            "Taichi, I'm not sick. I feel perfectly fine…all right, I'm sniffling, but that's allergies and I just take half a yellow pill and I'll be peachy. Why are you so smothery today?"

Tai's eyes narrowed in suspicion. "Mom told me she didn't want me going outside today because she said you were sick. You're not sick?"

"No."

"…And you're sure you didn't tell Mom I'm dating Matt?"

"I swear it on my now nonexistent tag and crest that I have told our mother nothing about your homosexual relationship with the kid across the street."

"…What about Dad?"

"_I HAVEN'T TOLD, ALL RIGHT?!"_ Kari bellowed. 

            It was then that the phone rang, and Hurricane Hikari was downgraded to a tropical storm. Tai skidded across the wooden floor, crashing into the phone table to get the receiver. 

"Kamiya residence," he said breathlessly. 

"Hello there, dear heart of mine."

"Matt…hi."

"What do you think about an all-Digidestined game of killer Frisbee? I bet I could even get Joe and Mimi out to play."

"…I can't. Mom told me not to leave the house. I don't want her to come home and find me gone, she'd stew my eyeballs in carob sauce and then pickle me in formaldehyde."

"Oh. Do you think she'd mind if I came over then? I was hoping I could play something for you. I've been working so hard on it and…"

"Get on over here, Beethoven."

"Actually, I prefer Bach and Mozart, but that's okay. Ten minutes enough time?"

"Plenty. See you then."

            Kari was still standing there, her yogurt still in her hand and her pajamas still on. 

"Matt's coming over in ten minutes. Unless you want him to see you in Sailor Moon pajamas, I'd change or lock yourself in the room."

Kari yelped, blushing heavily and running off down the hall. "If you come in on me while I'm changing I will tell Mom all about you!"

The brunette boy sighed, tidying up the living room quickly and then plugging in the video games. Though he was a strict artist, Matt had a serious addiction to video games. And you'd be damned if you played with him, he was that skilled with a controller. 

            Mom has to know something. She's been acting so weird lately, especially since she's been keeping me inside, which is everywhere Matt isn't. But I don't care what Mom says. I love him. 

Just then, the doorbell rang, several staccato peals of the jarring bell. Tai dropped a magazine and bolted for the door, throwing it wide open with a foolish grin on his face. 

Matt looked disheveled, far from his usual neat appearance. His cheek was bleeding; arms and legs scratched, and his jeans were ripped at the knees. 

"Matt! Holy Wargreymon, what'd you do?"

He smiled, touching his cheek and noting the blood. "You know those stairs outside my building, the concrete ones? Well, I went down them…headfirst."

Tai put his arms around his boyfriend. "My poor little klutz."

            They bandaged Matt up, rummaged through the fridge, and popped in a video game. For a while, there was only the silence of concentration, broken by the occasional battle cry of the screen or the defeated groan of the conquered warrior. That is, until…

"HIT ME BABY ONE MORE TIME!"

The two teenage boys jumped from the sheer explosion of sound. "Whoa!"

"Kari! Turn that down!" Tai hollered over the squeaky wails of Britney Spears. 

Matt chuckled. "I will never be that annoying when I have a band."

"Sure you will. You'll be one of those longhaired, hard-to-get prima donnas that get groped by complete strangers and only have three songs but everybody knows them."

"I will not. Besides, you'd be the only one groping me."

"Shut up. Weren't you going to play something for me?"

Matt sighed, dodging another poorly animated villain. "I left my guitar back in the apartment. That's why I slipped. I turned to go back up and get it, twisted my ankle, and fell. I'd do it a cappella, but I haven't quite worked out lyrics yet."

"That's all right. I love you anyways…oh damn, did you have to let me die?"

            They returned to their deep silence, pausing every so often to grab a drink or replenish the snacks laid out on the coffee table. 

"Tai, you really need to tell your parents about us. I don't think we can keep it a secret for much longer."

"Wha? What brought this on?"

"Nothing, I was just thinking about it yesterday. They have the right to know."

"Matt, they'll kill me, you know that! I can't tell them!"

He nodded sadly, shaking a can of iced tea. "I know. But if we don't say anything, they'll find out on their own or it'll slip in conversation, and then death will be the least of our punishments."

Tai paused their battle, tossing the controller aside. It fell to the floor with a slight thud. God only knew what Kari was doing in the bedroom, but it had to have been something constructive because she was certainly staying out of the way. He smiled at Matt, somewhat ruefully, as if he knew their relationship was doomed. 

"We'll make it work, I promise we can."

            He took up the blonde's scraped hands, holding them in his own, and they nodded in agreement. They kissed, as if kissing would make everything right. A pair of headstrong teenage boys who had stood up against terrible evil, and yet they were frightened of the wrath of Tai's parents. Something was going to give, and something was going to break. They just hoped that something wasn't going to be their hearts. 

~*~

            Matt paced his room anxiously, half-dressed and a nervous wreck. It wasn't as if he hadn't been on a date before, but he feared it was going to be his last, and so he wanted to make it count. 

"Matt, you're taking longer than the average teenage girl! You've got five minutes!"

"I know, Dad!" 

He threw on the nearest clean shirt and buttoned it, messed with his hair, and bolted. Just as he was getting his shoes on, the doorbell pealed. He took a deep breath and opened the front door. 

"Ready?" Tai asked, extending a hand. 

"I'll be back by eleven, don't put anything metal in the microwave," Matt instructed. Malcolm grinned, nodding. 

"I'll be careful. Have a good time, boy."

            Tai admittedly wasn't going to really enjoy sitting through four hours of foreign films, but he loved Matt and wanted to make him happy, so he'd suffer in silence. His blue-eyed boyfriend, on the other hand, was grinning with boyish excitement. 

"I told you I loved you for this, right?" 

"Twenty-two times already."

Halfway into a black and white French film, Tai found he was actually enjoying himself. He wrapped an arm around his lover's waist, and ignored the rapidly moving subtitles. If he only watched the movie, he could understand what was happening by the movement and feeling conveyed in the actors. Besides, Matt was trilingual and would lean over and whisper things to him every so often. 

"So she's in love with the mad scientist?"

"Right, but she's engaged to the arrogant surgeon with the bad hair."

            And the both of them completely ignored the really terrible American teenage romance film with those annoying bubble gum actors for some quality make out time. Hey, it wasn't like they were wasting their money, Mimi paid for the tickets in the first place. 

            "Well, which one did you like best?" Tai asked, walking Matt home. 

"Tough call. The Italian one wasn't bad, but neither was the French one."

"Personally, I liked the Swedish one."

"Tai, that wasn't Swedish, that was British."

"Hey, it's all Greek to me."

Matt rolled his eyes at the awful pun and kissed Tai's cheek. "Thanks, I had fun tonight."

"Any time. Call you tomorrow?"

He nodded, they kissed one more time, and then Matt headed back up that flight of concrete stairs outside his apartment building. The world seemed perfect for Tai. Seemed being the operative word...

~*~

            Kari was still up when Tai came in. She was sitting on his bunk, holding Miko the cat, a look of absolute terror on her small face. Tai unbuttoned his shirt and tossed in a hamper, the shorts following it. He hadn't noticed her expression yet. 

"Hey Kari, you have fun while I was out watching movies that didn't make sense?"

"They know," she whispered. 

"What's that?"

"Mom and Dad…they know…"

Tai went chalk white. "No. No, that can't be right. How?"

"I don't know, but they found out and they were yelling and screaming that, quote, 'no son of theirs would be queer,' and they're gonna have your head."

"Oh God…"

            After that, he couldn't sleep. He kept worrying about what his parents were going to do, what they would say. No matter what, Tai knew he had to stand up to his parents and prove that they were wrong; that a person should love whomever they chose, despite differences. After all, he was the Child of Courage. 

            The Kamiya's said nothing to their son the whole day, went about as if nothing was different, that life was perfectly normal. Until after dinner. Tai hadn't eaten much of anything, more interested in poking at it with his chopsticks and keeping his gaze down towards the floor. Kari sat beside him, looking equally nervous. 

"So…Tai, you never told us how your date went," their father said smoothly, his tone even. 

"All right…we had fun. The movies were kind of confusing but it was worth going."

Mrs. Kamiya slammed her glass down on the table and stood up. 

"Taichi Yuuki Kamiya, don't pretend like we don't know what's going on! We know you aren't dating that Takenouchi girl! You're…a…a…" she couldn't even bring herself to finish the statement, she was so incensed. 

            "May I be excused thank you good night!" Kari said quickly, taking her plates away and bolting for the bedroom. Kari's spent a lot of time hiding in her bedroom through this story, hasn't she? Hey, she doesn't need to be in this conversation, where else is she going to go? 

"Mom, I…"

"At first I just thought it was some sort of rebellious phase, so I ignored it. But it became more obvious. I've seen you two together. I've seen you blush and smile, and try to hide it. I saw you walk him home last night. How could you? How could you lie straight-faced to your own parents? How could my son be a queer after I raised him to be a normal boy?"

"It's not something you decide, Mama, it's something you are! And the only reason I wouldn't tell you is because you're so damn homophobic!"

            Jane and Allen Kamiya turned white, grayish green, and beet red in a matter of moments. It was an abomination that their son, their perfect little Taichi, could be gay. 

"Don't you yell at your mother like that! I forbid you to see this boy again! You will get this out of your system and be a normal man and have a normal family! No son of mine will be gay! Never!"

"No! I can't get it out of my system, it's who I am! And I'm bisexual, not gay! And I love Matt, and nothing you can do will make me change my mind!" 

Tears were streaming down his face now, fat droplets of hot saline water. Jane picked up her glass again and threw it against a wall, where it broke upon contact into hundreds of glittering shards. 

"You will stop seeing this boy or you will stop living under this roof. Enough of all this foolishness! No more! No strange little monsters, no crazy adventures, and the only dates you will be going on are with girls, do you understand?! You do not love this boy, and you are not gay!"

"You don't understand me! I knew you wouldn't! Why can't you just let me be happy?"

            He ran from the room, practically sobbing now, into his bedroom, door slammed and locked behind him. Tai collapsed onto his bed, body shaking with paroxysms, tears soaking his pillow. Kari sat down beside him, arm around his shoulder, watching her brother cry. The phone rang, and their still-hysterical mother picked it up. 

"Hello, Kamiya residence. Tai? He's not available at the moment, may I take a message?"

There was a pause of silence, followed by a horrible shriek. 

"You stay away from my son, do you hear me? He's not sick like you!"

The receiver was slammed violently back into the cradle, and Tai began to cry harder. It seemed as though true love could not withstand the throes of parental supremacy. 

~*~

            Malcolm could hear the screaming that was coming through the cordless phone halfway down the hall. He came out of his room, where he had been reading the newspaper, and into the kitchen, where his son was staring pale-faced at the phone in his hand. 

"The hell was that?" he asked. 

"…Mrs. Kamiya."

"She shrieked at you like a harpy? Why?"

"She told me…she told me to stay away from Tai. That he's not sick like me."

Malcolm Ishida then did something he hadn't done in nearly thirteen years. He held his son in his arms as the blonde boy started to cry. 

~*~

            That Monday began soccer practice for the Odaiba junior high team. Tai was glad to see all his familiar teammates, especially Sora and Izzy. Yes, Izzy once played soccer. It's a little-known fact. Kicking the ball around made him feel better, especially since his parents were cold to him for the rest of the weekend. The ultimatum still stood, his love or his home. As he unlaced his cleats at the end of the scrimmage, saying his goodbyes to his friends, he caught sight of a lone figure standing in the bleachers, dressed in black. Sunlight glinted off golden hair. Tai jammed his feet into his sneakers, zipped up his duffel and ran to catch him, curses and oaths streaming from under his breath. 

            "Matt!"

He glanced up, cobalt eyes bloodshot from crying for two days. "Hey Tai."

They sat down, wondering if Jane Kamiya would pop up and throw soccer balls at their heads and shriek nonsense about her son being normal. 

"We…need to talk. My parents don't want me seeing you anymore as a boyfriend."

"I know," he whispered hoarsely. 

"They said they'll disown me otherwise. I'm willing to chance that. I could live with somebody else, I'm sure the Izumi's could take me in, Izzy could use a brother, or…"

"Tai, stop. We both know that's madness. You're going to stay where you are, with your family."

"But Matt, that means…"

"Yeah. It does. I don't want to have to say this, and you don't want to have to hear this, but…but if we can't be together, then we can't. Kari needs you, your parents need you, and it would be selfish of me to tell you to leave them," he said bitterly, voice shaking with tears. 

"Matt, please don't cry. Please," Tai begged, his own eyes starting to burn. 

"No, I won't. I told you before, I never cry in front of anyone. Never."

            Tai bit back a sob, knowing that now would be the opportune time to show that Crest of Courage spirit. But his insides were crumbling like a sandcastle struck by a mighty wave, his usual youthful exuberance drowning in selfish sorrow. 

"It won't be forever, nothing could separate the two of us forever. Devimon couldn't, the Dark Masters couldn't, like hell my parents will. This is just for now, until they can understand."

"Right. We're best friends, nobody's gonna change that. And I'll be damned if we didn't get shot with those stupid love arrows together for absolutely nothing other than making our digimon evolve."

"Yeah…" Tai said wistfully. "…And no. Matt, I can't! I can't do this!"

"But we have to," he pointed out. 

"I know! You have to promise me…you have to promise that we'll always love each other, regardless of who we're dating or any of that."

"I promise."

            Tai took a deep breath, the air shuddering painfully. "One last kiss?"

  Their lips touched, a chaste action, as hands slid together palm-to-palm, fingers lacing. They alternated milky white and dusky tan, one set chafed from the bite of metal guitar strings on delicate fingers, the others rough from sun and wind and soccer. Mouths meshed further as they leaned into their kiss, the golden boy and his darker love. No, boy wasn't the right description for either of them. They were juxtaposed between boy and man, an awkward combination of the two. Lips clung and tasted, working furiously, for this was the last time they would ever taste each other. The sweet essences were gone, replaced by a bitter taste, the flavor of hurt and tears. They sobbed dryly into each other's mouths, shoulders trembling with the effort of relinquishing breath for this final act as lovers. A lone tear slid down one cheek, whosever it was mattered not, for it gracefully dropped to the other's in its tepid coursing. 

            They broke away slowly, the kiss lingering in the agonizing moments afterwards, and their hands parted. Tai picked up his duffel, climbing over the bleachers and up towards the street. Matt stood lingering for a few minutes, azure eyes glassy with tears that would be shed when he was all alone and in the dark…though he felt as though everything had turned to darkness around him. And as the two teenagers walked home in silence, sunlight dripping in honey puddles on the sidewalks and the windowpanes, the sky opened up and began pelting down rain. Rain through the sunshine. 

~*~

            Tai and Matt leaned back in their chairs, crossing arms in a pose of superiority. Of the six neo-Digidestined (as they preferred to be called) sitting before them in the computer lounge, only Cody remained stone-faced. The rest were in tears. Even Yolei, the most homophobic of the lot. 

"And that's the whole story," Matt said quietly, his mellifluous tenor voice shaking. 

Tai slugged him in the arm. "It is not, and you know it!"

"No, that's definitely it, Tai."

"Matt, you went home and slit your wrists three days later. If Kari hadn't come by to return that jacket you had left at our apartment, you would've been dead."

A few of the Chosen started crying harder at the thought of Matt sitting home alone, taking a knife to his wrists. The faint scars still ran perpendicular across his veins. 

            "I can't believe you never told all of this to me. I'm your brother!" T.K. whimpered. 

"That's why. That's why you wanted us to be happy," Davis added, his own hand clutching Ken's tightly. 

"I can't believe I was such a jackass to you guys," Yolei sniffled, wiping down her enormous glasses with her shirt hem. 

"It happens, we're used to it by now," Tai stated offhandedly. 

Cody frowned. "So I don't get why we needed to drop everything we were doing to hear this. I don't mean to sound ungrateful for the both of you taking your time to come speak to us, but…"

"Well, because…" Matt started, then stopped himself, realizing he had nothing to say. 

"…Because…" Taichi echoed, finding he was lacking in words himself. 

            "You want us to understand, because your parents never could," Ken filled in, speaking with his usual quiet voice. "Where you fell, we are to grow wings and fly."

There was a moment of uneasy silence, save only for the sniffling of running noses. 

            "We've got to get a move on, we're having a picnic in the Digital World with Nuriko and the very new Digidestined," Davis stated, motioning to a padlocked picnic basket…anything to keep voraciously hungry digimon from getting into it. The others nodded, and they started sliding through the portal. T.K. and Kari stood back, staring grimly at their brothers. 

"Will you guys be all right?" Kari asked. "You could come with us, if you want."

"Nah, we'll probably just sit here until you go and then go grab a pizza or something," Tai replied. 

"Thanks, though," Matt said quietly. 

T.K. shrugged in a "let them be" sort of manner, and they too left. 

            Both teenagers sighed heavily, staring at the glowing computer screen. 

"You know, if they get married one day, then we'll have absolutely no shot at anything because we'll be brothers. And I'm not one for incest."

"We'll be brothers-in-law, so it won't exactly count as incest," Matt pointed out. 

Tai nodded glumly, deciding that his sneakers were fascinating at that moment. 

"Hey Tai?"

"Yeah?"

"…Promise you won't tell anyone?"

The brunette boy stared at his blonde counterpart for a few minutes, not quite following. From the way his pale lips were trembling, it was all the understanding Tai needed. 

"I won't say a word, Matt. Trust me."

            The elder boy let out a gasping breath, falling into his shorter companion's arms and sobbing. Time cannot heal some wounds, and some carry those scars for eternity. The young leader began to cry as well, for no matter how badly something is wanted, it is always just out of one's reach. Outside the room, where within two young men shared their pain and sorrow, sunlight gleamed brilliantly in streaky bars. And though the pale and golden light shimmered down upon the city, the heavens were parted, and it began to pour down tears as well. Rain through the sunshine. 

~*~

**All right, I admit this was odd…humor ****and ****angst? Oh well, such is Lia. And I also admit I was a bit harsh with the characterizations of the Kamiya parents…but I wanted to convey the sense of irrational homophobia. By the way, their names aren't really Jane and Allen, but it wouldn't be fair if Matt's parents had names and Tai's didn't. Was it okay? Please tell me it was, because otherwise I fear Nicki ****will ****wear jingly Christmas shoes all of next year…oh God; I can see her prancing around in the fall musical wearing them. Nicki, for the love of Daisuke don't you ****DARE ****do that! **


End file.
